Summary of the Forbidden tower

This novel is set in the first age of Terran re-contact and follows on from
the events in The Spell Sword.

Damon Ridenow, temporary leader of the Guardsmen, rides towards Armida in
the Alton Domain after the defeat of the Great Cat. Once he was a technician
at Arilinn and loved Leonie Hastur, Keeper of Arilinn, in secret, but he was
sent from the Tower for being too sensitive. Now he has rebuilt his life and
is to marry Ellemir Lanart, daughter of the Lord of the Alton Domain, Dom
Esteban. On his way to Armida he meets Leonie, who is deciding whether to
release Ellemir's twin sister Callista from her vows as Keeper so that she can
marry the Terran Andrew Carr who helped rescue her from the Great Cat. The
Comyn are declining, and Callista is needed as Keeper, but she loves
Andrew.

At Armida, they are met by Callista, Andrew, Ellemir, Dom Esteban and
Desiderio Leynier (Dezi) who may be an unacknowledged son of Dom
Esteban. Leonie summons Callista to speak to her; Andrew offers to come with
her but she wants to face Leonie alone. Callista has been conditioned to be
remote, unaffected by passion, a Keeper, and she cannot even touch
Andrew. Leonie tries to persuade Callista to remain a Keeper, saying how much
she is needed, but Callista convinces her that she truly loves Andrew, and
Leonie releases her from her oath. Andrew, homesick for Terra despite his new
love for Darkover, fears that the hold of the Tower will reclaim Callista but
she reassures him. They kneel for blessing before Dom Esteban, who
symbolically accepts Andrew as a son.

They decide to hold a double freemate ceremony, not marry di catenas, and
the night before the wedding Ellemir and Callista talk. Callista is afraid
that she will not be able to overcome her Keeper's training and Ellemir tries
to comfort her by saying how, when she was fifteen, she lost her virginity to
their sister Dorian's husband Mikhail, and it was no great matter, but
Callista is still afraid. In the morning Damon and Andrew choose which suites
they will live in and Damon explains to Andrew how hard it was for him to
rebuild his life after being sent from Arilinn. Later, Callista tells Andrew
that, although they won't be able to consummate their marriage until her
Keeper's reactions have gone, she won't mind if he finds another woman. He
refuses, and they agree to share the same room. Callista and Ellemir's brother
Domenic, the Heir to Alton, arrives, greets them, and offers to stand as
kinsman to Andrew in the ceremony. After the marriages, there is a party with
all the neighbourhood and then a public putting to bed, which Callista and
Andrew find rather a trial.

Over the next month, Andrew gets to know Callista better and Ellemir
becomes pregnant, but with bad sickness. Ferrika, the Renunciate trained nurse
and midwife, asks Damon to help her with some badly frost-bitten men. Some are
so badly hurt that Damon realises he will have to try and heal them with his
laran, although that is forbidden for one who has left Arilinn. He asks
Callista to help but she refuses, having lain down her oath, so Andrew and
Dezi, who was Arilinn-trained, help him=2E The matrix work is hard but
successful, and Damon begins to rebel against the superstitions which restrict
matrix work to the Towers, explaining this to Ellemir.

Some days later Ellemir collapses and has a miscarriage: she and Damon are
too closely related to safely have a child. Andrew and Damon ride out to
Serrais and Damon explains to Andrew that Callista's nerve channels, which in
a normal woman are used selectively for laran and sex, have been fixed by her
Keeper's training to laran only. When they return, Dezi taunts Andrew that his
marriage is not legal yet, as it has not been consummated, and this prompts
them to attempt it that night, in inadvertent rapport with Damon and
Ellemir. Suddenly Andrew hears Callista scream and he is flung across the
room, losing consciousness. When he wakes, Damon and Ellemir are there. Damon
stitches his forehead, explaining that what happened was a Keeper's reaction:
Callista didn't mean to hurt him, but the psi force could have killed him and
she took the backlash through her own body. Callista's channels are blocked
and the nerve channels are trying to carry laran and sex at once, making her
ill. The next day Callista is still ill, and she has begun to
menstruate. Damon is shocked to hear that this is the first time ever, that
Leonie fixed her channels before she had matured to that stage. Andrew feels
guilty about Callista's suffering and a voice in his head seems to tell him to
go, that he is not wanted. He wanders, half-dazed, into a snowstorm and
collapses there.

Damon, trying to extract the laran-enhancing drug kirian from kireseth
flowers, realises that Andrew has gone. Questioning Dezi, he finds that Dezi
used his Alton gift of forced rapport to send Andrew into the storm. They find
Andrew, and when he has recovered, Damon faces Dezi and demands his matrix so
that he can't misuse it again. Dezi resists, but using a telepathic damper
Damon takes his matrix and hides it. In the morning Dezi is gone, to Domenic
at Thendara. Damon now knows that Dezi is truly Dom Esteban's son, his gifts
show him to be full Comyn.

Callista does not recover from her illness and Damon warns her that her
channels must be cleared, but she refuses because that would restore her to
her conditioned state as Keeper and again, she wouldn't be able to touch
Andrew. Callista goes to Leonie in the overworld and demands to know why
Leonie fixed her channels so that she can't decondition herself. Leonie asks
her to return to Arilinn but Callista refuses, and reaffirms her wedding vows
to Andrew. Damon goes to Leonie and asks if there is anything to help Callista
and she tells him she will search the records, and he must come back another
time.

In Armida, Callista goes into convulsions and Damon tells her that she has
no choice now: she must clear her channels or die. Callista agrees and takes
kirian to help her. Meanwhile, Ellemir offers herself to Andrew, saying that
it would be easier for Callista is she didn't have to feel his need, and
Andrew accepts. When Callista wakes, the pain has gone but her Keeper's
reflexes have returned full strength. She goes to talk to Andrew in the garden
and he tries to keep up a line of communication between them by asking her if
she minds sharing him with Ellemir. He reminds her that it is her he truly
loves and that he loves Ellemir in another way.

A few weeks after this, Callista discovers that some of the dangerous
kireseth flower has gone missing and Damon tells her that he took it but won't
tell her why. Damon warns Dom Esteban that they will need to carry out some
barricaded psi work soon. Damon and Andrew share a dream which somehow
connects the kireseth flowers with Callista's situation, but Damon can't work
out why. The next day, with Callista as monitor, he travels through the
overworld to meet Leonie, passing the Tower which their psi work has built at
Armida. Leonie tells him that he must go on Timesearch, back into the past
when such things were known. She admits that she sent him from Arilinn only
because she loved him and Damon, torn by his old love, agrees to return at
Midwinter when she can guide him in the search.

At the Midwinter Festival Damon gets drunk in fear of what he will have to
do, but he senses Callista's grief and despair and resolves to go through with
it. Leonie guides him up through the levels of the overworld until she can go
no further, then Damon continues alone until he finds himself at Neskaya
Tower, centuries ago. A young man greets him as tener=E9zu - Keeper - and
introduces himself as Varzil, the legendary Varzil the Good who set up the
Compact of Darkover. Varzil tells Damon to remember the Year's End Ritual
which will help Callista, then returns Damon to his body before his strength
runs out. Damon resolves to search the records of all the Towers for the
Year's End Ritual.

Near Spring Ellemir tells Andrew that she is pregnant with his child and
although he is pleased, he wonders how Callista will take the news. Callista
and Andrew ride out to gather kireseth flowers and she tells him that she is
glad about the baby because she is not ready to bear a child yet and he wants
to be a father. The kireseth flowers affect them, and Andrew is able to kiss
Callista without her withdrawing. However, when Damon monitors Callista back
at Armida, her channels are clear and he tells her that she must have had a
hallucination.

At dinner that night Dom Esteban has a flash of Alton precognition and
starts to worry about Domenic. The next day news comes that Domenic is dead,
killed accidentally by a blow to his head during sword practice with his sworn
brother Cathal Lindir. The family, with Ferrika to look after Ellemir, go to
Thendara for Domenic's burial. Also, the new Heir to Alton, Valdir, is only
twelve and Dom Esteban is ill, so a regent must be appointed. In the chapel at
Thendara, Cathal is grieving over Domenic's body. He says that Domenic was
alive but unconscious when he left to get help and that Dezi was with
him. Damon, horrified, begins to suspect that Dezi may have killed Domenic by
taking his matrix from his body, but has no proof. At the burial, everyone
pays tribute to Domenic, who was well-liked, while Dezi stays with Dom
Esteban. In Comyn Council, Damon is proposed as Regent to Alton should Dom
Esteban die before Valdir is of age. Damon begins to swear the oath of
allegiance to the Alton Domain but suddenly Dezi challenges his right to be
Regent, saying that Damon tried to kill him. Damon explains why he took Dezi's
matrix but Dezi reveals that Andrew is a Terran and there is uproar. Lorill
Hastur calms them and promises that a judgement will be made in three days
time.

Callista is now convinced that Dezi killed Domenic and Damon asks Margwenn
Elhalyn, under-Keeper of Comyn Tower, to check the monitor screens for
Domenic's matrix. It is still alive, proving that Dezi took it for his own
use. When they tell Dom Esteban he collapses with shock and lies seriously
ill. Damon confronts Dezi but Dezi has the Alton gift which can kill, and
Damon falls to his knees. Callista steps between them as Keeper and takes
Dezi's matrix. Dezi teleports to Armida, where his old matrix is, but doesn't
realise that it is in a box and dies, his head cracked open. Callista goes
into hysterics because she has broken her vow and is forsworn but Damon slaps
her. He realises that he, not Callista, is Keeper of the circle they have
built up and is responsible for them all.

A couple of hours later, Leonie, Margwenn and some other telepaths demand
an audience with Damon and Andrew. Leonie accuses Damon of working an illegal
circle and demands that he dissolves the new Tower. Damon refuses, saying that
the Arilinn way of training telepaths is corrupt and shouldn't be restricted
to the Towers. He and Callista, although sent from Arilinn, should be free to
use their powers. Leonie leaves, promising to lay the matter before Comyn
Council. The penalty for Damon's crime is to have the psi centres of his brain
burnt out. Damon is terrified and Andrew tries to comfort him, realising at
last the four-fold bond between them.

Three days later they are summoned to Comyn Council and formally accused
of misusing their powers. Lorill tells Andrew that he will be returned to the
Terrans; Callista will return to Arilinn as Keeper and Damon will have his psi
centres burnt out but Ellemir is allowed to go free for her child's
sake. Ellemir refuses to go, wanting to stay with Damon, and starts to explain
how laran should be used. Rohana Ardais listens to her but is overruled. Damon
invokes the ancient challenge: he has established his Tower and will test its
right to remain by duel. Leonie agrees and Lorill declares that the duel will
begin at sunrise. Back in their suite, Damon realises at last how kireseth is
connected to the Year's End Ritual. In the old days, it was used to release
Keepers whose channels had frozen as it breaks down inhibitions. Callista must
be able to tell the Council that her marriage has been consummated or it will
not be legal, and so they decide to carry out the ritual that night. Inhaling
the pollen, Callista feels her inhibitions fade but is still afraid. Ellemir
shares her memories of her first sexual experience and reassures
Callista. Slowly the rapport builds and they soon lose any sense of
separateness.

When Callista wakes she knows that she has conceived a daughter. Damon has
a vision that a daughter of his own (Cleindori Aillard, daughter of Jaelle
n'ha Melora - see The Bloody Sun) will be murdered for trying to spread the
knowledge they have just gained. At sunrise they move into the overworld and
wait for the attack. Leonie and her Circle attack them with lightening and
slime but the Tower remains strong. Leonie creates a dragon which burns down
the Tower but they rise like a phoenix and soar victorious over Arilinn. Damon
calls for a truce and meets Leonie. Leonie is horrified to see that Callista
is now a woman but can still use her powers, and Damon realises that Leonie
neutered herself after she fell in love with him to remove temptation. Leonie
acknowledges Damon as Keeper and then leaves them alone.

Some days later they prepare to return to Armida. Dom Esteban is better
and Damon knows that he will not be needed as Regent. Leonie comes to bless
them, knowing that she will not see them again. As they ride, Callista looks
forward to the birth of her child and a new life with Andrew, and Damon looks
forward to developing new science of matrix technology on Darkover.